I'm so sorry but I've been swamped! I recently went home and discovered we are at Level 2.

Time to party and raise some funds to save our home!

This time I will need help and it's time to heal our broken family. I've heard many stories of people leaving Uru because of various issue caused by two individuals and this saddens me.

This CAVECON"S theme will be about family values and healing!

I would very much like it for everyone to participate and create an event in the Cavern. I will find some D'nij's and pay SL DJ's to help!

Please plan an event and post it here in this thread. I'll create events in SL with the help of the Refugees to raise money in SL.

Each and everyone can make a difference and reunite this family!

The Starfish- Author unknownI awoke early, as I often did, just before sunrise, to walk by the ocean's edge and greet the new day.
As I moved through the morning dawn, I focused on a faint, far away motion. I saw a youth, bending and reaching and flailing arms, dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.
As I approached, I realized that the youth was not dancing to the bay, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night's tide, stopping now and then to pick up starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea.
I asked the youth the purpose of the effort. "The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by themselves," the youth replied. "When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back into the sea."
As the youth explained, I surveyed the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions beyond eyesight. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. The hopelessness of the youth's plan became clear to me and I countered, "But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference."
The youth paused briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me he simply said,
"I made a difference to that ONE."

The CAVCON is at 2 because it's the number of the beginning of the month. This is a perfectly normal number for CAVCON. It was at 2.6 before because "expenses were up"; it will be low this month too because there were two attempts at an update. Two months ago, it was at a nice round 3.0.

CAVCON parties have the unfortunate side-effect of inducing something Mac_Fife called donor fatigue. People might donate more on a one-time basis because of the party, but afterwards, they'll feel like they've done enough already and won't donate for a long time. The effect is somewhat lessened now that Cyan has committed to a year of support, but it's still present. If the monetary situation was critical (say several months of CAVCON <= 2.5 without updates or other unusual expenditures), that might be different - we might actually get a huge amount of donations for the month, and that would definitely be useful. But as far as I can tell, we're doing pretty well right now since Cyan can afford two attempts at an update in a month.

Neither have I felt like the community is torn apart or "broken" (I can't say I consider it to be a "family" either); on the contrary, I've found it to be a lot more united then before, and I have made several new friends in Cavern. I don't know who these "two individuals" are, but to me it seems like things have changed for the better. Not to mention several of my friends have become a lot more active in Uru recently, along with myself (yes, I'm back to coding; hurray). Finally, inside information I can't share right now leads me to feel extremely optimistic and enthusiastic about the upcoming months.

So while CAVECON can't really hurt much, I don't think it's particularly needed right now, unless I'm seriously mistaken about the situation. Six days from now, it'll be summer, and a lull in participation and activity is to be expected, so I'm unsure as to how many people this will actually reach out to.

Let's hope for the best.

EDIT: Additionally, I'm not particularly sure the analogy with the starfish is suited here. What would represent the one starfish, and what would represent the multitude of starfish? I see only one server...

Updates to the platform and newer technology is needed to keep Uru running. Im not very IT but this I understand. Furthermore there are over 250K people registered for Uru and if everyone gave 10.00 US maybe new content could be created or more upgrades to improve Uru. Each and everyone of us can make a difference in our own way

About a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion explains that this is simply its nature. The fable is used to illustrate the view that the behaviour of some creatures, or of some people, is irrepressible, no matter how they are treated and no matter what the consequences. -According to Wikipedia.

On topic, your dates seem to clash with D’nipalooza .So, unless you two are somehow collaborating and didn't make it clear yet (in this case you may have to), I'd suggest you to adjust your dates accordingly. Otherwise you'll be confusing and dividing the community with your own hands (once again).

Updates to the platform and newer technology is needed to keep Uru running. Im not very IT but this I understand. Furthermore there are over 250K people registered for Uru and if everyone gave 10.00 US maybe new content could be created or more upgrades to improve Uru. Each and everyone of us can make a difference in our own way

Updates and newer technology aren't really needed; actually, if newer technology was used, this would probably break the Uru server software, since it runs on Windows 2003 (if I remember correctly). Donations only serve to pay for the hosting of the servers, light maintenance, and the occasional update process (which, for financial reasons, only happens every few months).

Also, while 250 000 accounts have not been created. There are currently, as of 06/12/13, only 109 459 accounts, according to the statistics. Additionally, if you look at the CAVCON stats for the past few months, you'll notice that only 4000 users seem to regularly log in each month; the rest is probably composed of inactive or spam accounts. Take into account that many people are underage, that many only occasionally log into MO:ULa (average weekly stats are around 1500), that many aren't aware of the events going on or don't follow the forums, and I think that probably only 1000 players could potentially donate (1500 at most, if my estimations are correct). Then take into account annual server costs (since Cyan now rents the servers one year at a time), which number in the hundreds of dollars (difficult to be more precise; based on previous estimations and accounting for the server transfer, I'd guess it'd probably be somewhere around 500$/month? I'm not really qualified to say, so don't take my word for it), and you must come to the conclusion that unless everyone feels exceptionally generous and gives hundreds of dollars each, donations will at best keep the server alive (which is all that is needed right now, really).

If my memory serves well, the previous CAVECON, which was in July of 2012, brought the CAVCON level to 3. In contrast, the CAVCON anniversary party, which was hosted in November 2012, brought it to 4.7 for that month, which I think is the best we can aim for. All in all, I believe it's safe to say that no matter how much money can realistically be raised, we'll never go higher than 4.X (again, I think summer is not the best time for a party; CAVCON has never gone beyond 3 during the months of July and August, while the best times have consistently been towards the end of a year and the beginning of a new one).

Not to mention that, as Mac_Fife posted somewhere some time ago, CAVCON 5 might not be a desirable state at all. But since we'll quite likely never reach it, there's not much point to speculating on it.

EDIT: Looks like CAVCON is currently at 2.7. Since the month isn't over yet, this seems to bode pretty well for this month.

About a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion explains that this is simply its nature. The fable is used to illustrate the view that the behaviour of some creatures, or of some people, is irrepressible, no matter how they are treated and no matter what the consequences. -According to Wikipedia.

Nice story. I agree with the moral to some extent, although I think that with enough time and effort, any nature can be changed, for better or for worse.

Is this the place to ask, how is access to the DMR being handled for the interview? I've not seen how a popular event such as this is handled. Will everyone trying to get in at once jam the link point?

Is this the place to ask, how is access to the DMR being handled for the interview? I've not seen how a popular event such as this is handled. Will everyone trying to get in at once jam the link point?

I don't see how you could "jam" the link-in point other than crashing the game... you can stand and walk in each other after all.

ventris, if everyone tries to link-in all at once, it will definitely slow down the linking-in time and some people will likely crash. And, even if they arrive spread out over time, as the neighborhood starts filling up, the number of avatars already there will affect the linking in time. So, just plan to get there early.

There are population caps on some areas... 50 in the city, 200 in the pubs and K'veer. I'm don't recall ever seeing a population cap on a neighborhood. The last Rand interview I went to was in a Neighborhood and the highest number of people I saw was 217. The only problem was the excessive lag which makes it like 5 steps per minute. People with slow connections or excessive latency might get disconnected. The biggest problem is people moving around. Finding a spot and standing still will help everyone.

What exactly is "west europe" time? Do you mean GMT or CET? With or without daylight saving time?If you're talking about CEDT, it's 13:00 KI time. just give the time in KI time and everything will be fine...